Mary,
I like the idea of the bar room bet.
Make something too commercial and is taken over by the commercialism and, the real challenge, the sailing becomes secondary.

I would hate to see teams having to put up $20,000. Put all that money together for a prize and there is only one winner and a bunch of losers sailing 1000 miles.

Make the race as cheap as possible for people to enter and raise funds some other way like TV rights.

Get the money out of it and have class or yardstick competition. Get the emphasis on completing the event and the number of winners start to increase and with this I expect the number of competators will increase also.

I would like to see the event run on any two man boat 16ft-20ft that has a handicap faster than a Hobie 18.

There be at least two prizes. Handicap and Line honours. Or a number of class prizes plus line honours.

Just the way I see it.

Phill